Holy Cross College, a £29m state-of-the-art secondary school in Strabane, has officially opened.

The school designed by HLM Architects in collaboration of RPP Architects, was delivered by the Belfast Educational Services, which comprises O'Hare & McGovern and Interserve Plc.

The new school has been formed through the amalgamation of two single sex secondary schools and a girls' grammar school onto a single site. The school provides facilities designed to motivate and inspire 1,800 pupils.

The school has 115 classrooms, which are colour coded to allow for easy orientation, along with excellent accommodation for languages, music and drama. It has extensive sports facilities that can be used by other schools in the area.

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Karl Ruddle, regional director at HLM said: "Sustainability was at the heart of our design approach and the design creates an environment, visually, spatially and emotionally that hopes to stimulate the minds of the people who experience it and also reflects the ethos and aspirations of the School.

"Our response to the client's brief was to develop accommodation around a series of 'collegiate courtyards', providing a compact form. The courtyards provide opportunities to create enclosed and semi-enclosed outside spaces that will be secure and well supervised during informal break periods, but lend themselves to outdoor learning during class time and, for example, open-air theatre out with school hours."

Education Minister Caitriona Ruane said: "This school demonstrates what can be achieved when three schools, instead of each competing for new buildings and facilities, come together. This is a wonderful school with state-of-the-art equipment and facilities. In the future the young people of West Tyrone will be served by a school estate fit for the 21st century."

Holy Cross College is one of four bilateral schools in Northern Ireland, which means that only 35 per cent of pupils are selected on academic ability, the rest chosen on the basis of where they live. All pupils are taught under one roof but the school has the flexibility to differentiate according to ability through a streaming and banding system.

(GK/JM)